random posts

Tuesday, 23 May 2017

Never mind the hiring underlaps at the Centres for Disease Control and the frittering away of institutional knowledge that means America is woefully ill-equipped to face the next virulent outbreak—meaning that the nation becomes a vector for the rest of the world, or the heartlessness of stripping health-coverage from those most in need of it, routine surgeries and treatments are being postponed because of a rather baffling shortage of medical grade sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Used in a number of treatments, health care providers are getting desperate and suspect that the scarcity—which has occurred periodically—is the unfortunate collusion of factors chief among them being there’s little incentive in making this basic ingredient—unlike the proprietary drugs that rake in huge, exploitative profits. Perhaps some substitute is about to be brought to market that performs the same function at eight thousand times the cost. Most other governments would intervene before things get to point where healthcare is at the mercy of a few powerful cartels.